logging - Caused By: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/apache/log4j/Logger

Question

I've got an interesting problem in which the org.apache.log4j.Logger class is not found during runtime. I'm trying to get authorized and that is where it's failing:

OAuthAuthorizer oauthAuthorizer = new OAuthAuthorizer(OAUTH_CONSUMER_KEY, OAUTH_CONSUMER_SECRET, SAML_PROVIDER_ID, userId);

I'm using JDeveloper 11.1.1.6. Here is what I know:

1. I've looked in my UI.war/WEB-INF/lib directory and I see the log4j-1.2.17.jar there.

2. The class complaining about it is org.opensaml.xml.XMLConfigurator

   Caused by: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/apache/log4j/Logger
       at org.opensaml.xml.XMLConfigurator.<clinit>(XMLConfigurator.java:60)
       at org.opensaml.DefaultBootstrap.initializeXMLTooling(DefaultBootstrap.java:195)
       at org.opensaml.DefaultBootstrap.bootstrap(DefaultBootstrap.java:91)
       at com.intuit.ipp.aggcat.util.SAML2AssertionGenerator.getSAMLBuilder(SAML2AssertionGenerator.java:156)
       at com.intuit.ipp.aggcat.util.SAML2AssertionGenerator.createSubject(SAML2AssertionGenerator.java:187)
       at com.intuit.ipp.aggcat.util.SAML2AssertionGenerator.buildAssertion(SAML2AssertionGenerator.java:114)
       at com.intuit.ipp.aggcat.util.SAML2AssertionGenerator.generateSignedAssertion(SAML2AssertionGenerator.java:83)
       at com.intuit.ipp.aggcat.util.SamlUtil.createSignedSAMLPayload(SamlUtil.java:156)
       at com.intuit.ipp.aggcat.util.OAuthUtil.getOAuthTokens(OAuthUtil.java:60)
       at com.intuit.ipp.aggcat.core.OAuthAuthorizer.<init>(OAuthAuthorizer.java:85)
       at com.incomemax.view.intuit.WebUtil.getAggCatService(WebUtil.java:91)
   

   Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.apache.log4j.Logger
       at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:202)
       at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
       at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:190)
       at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:305)
       at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Launcher.java:301)
       at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:246)
       ... 64 more
   

3. I decomplied XMLConfigurator and oddly it doesn't import org.apache.log4j.Logger It uses org.slf4j.Logger which is also in my jars directory (slf4j-api-1.7.5.jar). Also interesting is that line 60 (see stack trace) is a blank line in my decompile.

4. Of course if I add Logger.xxxxx during design time, it finds it just fine.

5. I'm using the code/jars directly from the sample java code, but imported into my existing application.

I've been scouring the web for answers and I believe I've checked all the areas I can think of. I also referenced this very good page: http://myarch.com/classnotfound/

Given authorization is step 1 in using the Intuit Developer API, I'm kinda stuck.

Adding output from @jhadesdev suggestion:

All versions of log4j Logger:

• zip:C:/Users/Chris/AppData/Roaming/JDeveloper/system11.1.1.6.38.61.92/DefaultDomain/servers/DefaultServer/tmp/_WL_user/j2ee-app/lt5l71/war/WEB-INF/lib/log4j-1.2.17.jar!/org/apache/log4j/Logger.class

All versions of log4j visible from the classloader of the OAuthAuthorizer class:

• zip:C:/Users/Chris/AppData/Roaming/JDeveloper/system11.1.1.6.38.61.92/DefaultDomain/servers/DefaultServer/tmp/_WL_user/j2ee-app/lt5l71/war/WEB-INF/lib/log4j-1.2.17.jar!/org/apache/log4j/Logger.class

All versions of XMLConfigurator:

• jar:file:/C:/Oracle/Middleware11116/modules/com.bea.core.bea.opensaml2_1.0.0.0_6-1-0-0.jar!/org/opensaml/xml/XMLConfigurator.class

• zip:C:/Users/Chris/AppData/Roaming/JDeveloper/system11.1.1.6.38.61.92/DefaultDomain/servers/DefaultServer/tmp/_WL_user/j2ee-app/lt5l71/war/WEB-INF/lib/ipp-java-aggcat-v1-devkit-1.0.2.jar!/org/opensaml/xml/XMLConfigurator.class

• zip:C:/Users/Chris/AppData/Roaming/JDeveloper/system11.1.1.6.38.61.92/DefaultDomain/servers/DefaultServer/tmp/_WL_user/j2ee-app/lt5l71/war/WEB-INF/lib/xmltooling-1.3.1.jar!/org/opensaml/xml/XMLConfigurator.class

All versions of XMLConfigurator visible from the class loader of the OAuthAuthorizer class:

• jar:file:/C:/Oracle/Middleware11116/modules/com.bea.core.bea.opensaml2_1.0.0.0_6-1-0-0.jar!/org/opensaml/xml/XMLConfigurator.class

• zip:C:/Users/Chris/AppData/Roaming/JDeveloper/system11.1.1.6.38.61.92/DefaultDomain/servers/DefaultServer/tmp/_WL_user/j2ee-app/lt5l71/war/WEB-INF/lib/ipp-java-aggcat-v1-devkit-1.0.2.jar!/org/opensaml/xml/XMLConfigurator.class

• zip:C:/Users/Chris/AppData/Roaming/JDeveloper/system11.1.1.6.38.61.92/DefaultDomain/servers/DefaultServer/tmp/_WL_user/j2ee-app/lt5l71/war/WEB-INF/lib/xmltooling-1.3.1.jar!/org/opensaml/xml/XMLConfigurator.class

I'm still working on interpreting the results.

Answer 1

During runtime your application is unable to find the jar.

Taken from this answer by Jared:

It is important to keep two different exceptions straight in our head in this case:

1. java.lang.ClassNotFoundException This an Exception, it indicates that the class was not found on the classpath. This indicates that we were trying to load the class definition, and the class did not exist on the classpath.

2. java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError This is Error, it indicates that the JVM looked in its internal class definition data structure for the definition of a class and did not find it. This is different than saying that it could not be loaded from the classpath. Usually this indicates that we previously attempted to load a class from the classpath, but it failed for some reason - now we're trying again, but we're not even going to try to load it, because we failed loading it earlier. The earlier failure could be a ClassNotFoundException or an ExceptionInInitializerError (indicating a failure in the static initialization block) or any number of other problems. The point is, a NoClassDefFoundError is not necessarily a classpath problem.

for similarities and differences